The motel room hums with the buzz of a failing neon sign. Johnny Maverick sits on the edge of a bed that's seen better decades, knees creaking like old floorboards. His guitar rests across his lap — a Martin D-28 with two strings missing, the G and the B. He's been playing the same three chords for an hour. G. C. D. Over and over. The progression doesn't resolve. It just circles back, like a car on a dark road that can't find the exit. The window is cracked open an inch. The October air carries dust and the faint chemical tang of an irrigation pump running late. Beyond the parking lot, the Okanogan hills are black silhouettes against a starless sky. He stops strumming. Listens. The silence fills the room like water. Then he hears it again — a low metallic scrape from the lot. Not wind. Not a truck. Something sliding across asphalt with purpose. Johnny sets the guitar on the bed. He doesn't stand. He just sits still, watching the gap in the curtain. His reflection stares back from the dark glass, distorted and hollow. The scraping stops. A moment later, the motel room's single bulb flickers. Once. Twice. Then holds. He reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a worn pick — wood, hand-carved, with a symbol burned into the surface. A circle with three lines through it. Bob had shown it to him last week. Found it buried behind the barn. "Something's here," Johnny whispers to no one. Outside, the scraping resumes. Closer now. And the guitar's remaining strings begin to vibrate on their own.